Coping Methods
by BlackthornTree
Summary: Reid can't prevent episodes of depression, but Morgan knows him well enough to help. Gen.


It rolls over him on the jet; quite suddenly. Out of nowhere —no, not quite. Out of a complex mix of brain chemistry, gone wrong.

_Not now, not now_, he thinks. He'd prefer _not ever_, but it's not worth counting scenarios of such slim possibility. Like a runner trying to outpace the fatigue of his body, he can push it to the background for long stretches of time, but sooner or later he always hits a wall that means he can't go on. All his body's reserves are used up.

Like the tide the bleakness rolls in, filling him up. He can feel it lodging as a physical presence in his heart, his lungs. The sky pressing down on him.

He isn't sitting next to one of the others. And they're on their way home. He can be grateful for small mercies as he digs his fingernails into his palm, trying to disrupt the numb bleakness before it can fully settle. The air around him is turning syrup-thick, and his body doesn't feel like his own.

He has coping methods he's learned over long years. Puzzles work for him — consuming mechanical movement. He has none here, of course, but instead he forces himself to his feet and to the tiny kitchenette where he makes himself tea, concentrating on each step as his tears open the teabag sachet and squeezes it against the side of the mug filled with boiling water and stirs and adds sugar and stirs and adds milk and stirs.

He's been here too long. Morgan joins him, loud and crowding. "Reid, you okay?"

"Yes," Reid says, mechanically, but he can't get out of the space without pushing past Morgan and he doesn't want to get that close to another person, not now. It feels like the very air around him could cause bruising.

"I don't think you are," Morgan says, carefully.

Reid feels his shoulders hunch in on himself. He has the tea clutched in one hand. It's too hot against his palm, and it hurts.

Morgan takes a step back, and suddenly there's room to get out. Reid takes the opening, although he feels weirdly disconnected and like he's moving not quite right.

He doesn't look at anyone as he goes all the way to the rear of the cabin, to the sideways-turned couch. No one can block him in if he sits there. He presses himself into the corner of it and has to force himself to sip at the tea. It's slightly bitter, with the sugar an odd discordant note.

It's two hours and fourteen minutes until their scheduled landing time in Virginia. If there's a favourable wind they could arrive sooner.

He jerks his head up at the sound of slow, deliberate footfalls. Morgan again. He sits down at the other end of the small couch, leaving as much space as is possible between their bodies. He puts his hand down on the seat cushion between them.

"You don't have to talk," he says, keeping his words quiet. "No one's going to come down this end of the jet unless you ask for them. And if you need me to go too, I will."

Reid nods very slightly in acknowledgement. His throat feels too tight to release words. There is a hollow agony in his chest, and he can feel the too-thick air pressing in all around him.

Morgan says and asks for nothing. After six minutes, Reid reaches down and takes hold of his hand. He squeezes Morgan's fingers hard, and Morgan squeezes back. He's a lifeline suddenly; a rock to cling to.

"There's nothing wrong," Reid says, eventually. He's already lost track of the minutes. They're skipping unpredictably. "There's no reason to feel like this."

"That's okay," Morgan says.

"You've got better things to do."

"No, I don't."

Reid sits silent some more. "Sorry."

Morgan sighs. "Reid, please don't apologise. You're not feeling well; that's not your fault."

Reid wants to say that it's not like he's _ill_. But the words stick in his chest because he knows that Morgan will argue them. _He_ would argue them, if it were anyone else speaking.

Sometime later they land. Morgan is a buffer between Reid and the others as they disembark. Fewer things he has to deal with. He's glad, and grateful.

Outside it's night, and Reid is glad of that too. He feels safer in the dark right now.

Morgan claims a car. "I'll drive," he says to Reid, and the others just nod their goodbyes without making Reid have to speak, to engage.

Reid waits until they're inside. It's good, an enclosed space with the lights of the road outside, not in. "Where are we going?"

"You choose," Morgan says.

Reid shrugs. The thought of having to make a decision is so exhausting as to paralyse him.

"My place, then," Morgan states. "At least I know I've got food in."

"You don't have to do this," Reid repeats.

Morgan glances at him, although it's too dark to see his expression. In any case, Reid tries to keep his eyes fixed on the windscreen. "If you say that or a variant of that again, I'm going to start getting annoyed. How many times have we had this argument?"

The ghost of a smile pulls at Reid's mouth. "Lots."

"Exactly. I'm not leaving you by yourself when you're like this. We're a team, man. We're _friends_."

Some of the frozen chill inside Reid seems to thaw. Just a little, but enough to help the rest of the drive go faster.

He follows Morgan mechanically into his apartment, and sits on the couch when ordered. There's a lot of space around him again, but at least it's familiar space. "Are you hungry?" Morgan asks.

Reid isn't sure. It's another kind of decision, and he's no more capable of this one. "No?"

"Well, too bad. You're eating anyway." Small sounds of Morgan turning on the stove and putting something on to heat.

He joins Reid on the couch within a few minutes, bringing a throw. "You look cold," he says, and frowns at the DVD collection. "Where have we got to on _Voyager_?"

Reid has been making him watch it in increments every time he's been over, while Morgan offers token protests. "Season four, episode seven."

"Right," Morgan says, and slides the DVD into the player. "Remind me to check on our dinner in half an hour."

He settles back into the couch, and Reid leans against him very slightly. He can find no words to say how much he appreciates this — Morgan's matter-of-factness, and the way he knows just what to do. There are barely any words in him at all right now, all displaced by the black mass of depression.

But it's okay. They'll come back. They always do.


End file.
